Getting the Word out About your Next Webinar

Even in pre-COVID-19 times, webinars were becoming a growing a trend in associations. They are a great way to reach a national audience and provide a source of education for members. If you are going to spend time and energy putting together a webinar, it is important that you properly market that webinar to your audience.

1.     Pick a topic your membership wants to hear about. Do not make assumptions on topic choices, poll your membership and understand what they are looking to gain out of webinars. This will help you to plan out the year’s subjects. Provide a spot in the survey for members to also suggest a speaker if they know someone who would fit the bill. This will make your job on the board easier while making members happier.

2.     Put goals in place. What does the board want to achieve from the webinars? Member retention? Membership growth? Revenue? This is important to discuss before jumping into the details. It allows you to put some structure to the webinars and topics. It also makes it clear who the marketing messages should be directed at.

3.     Create a timeline. How often do you want to reach out to your target audience? What should each message include? Having this timeline planned out in advance will ensure everything goes out properly and at fitting times. You can schedule social media messages on Hootsuite or future emails on platforms like Constant Contact and MailChimp.

4.     Introduce your speaker in advance. In the messages going out to potential attendees, provide them with some information on the speaker. Include things that would explain why they are qualified to speak on the topic. If the webinar is not just for members, let your speaker know that they can invite others as well.

5.     Follow up! Provide those that registered for the webinar with all of the materials discussed. This includes slides and a recording of the webinar. Some people might have signed up and had to miss it and others might just want to reference the materials in the future. You can also take the content and make it into a blog post for your website. You have the information and should make the most of it.

Webinars are only going to continue to grow and should be embraced! Keep your members happy and educated.

Impact Association Management welcomes the American Medical Association Alliance

April 1, 2020, Madison, Wisconsin –Impact Association Management (Impact) is pleased and proud to announce the signing of the American Medical Association Alliance (AMA Alliance) as their newest client.      

“We hit the ground running with Impact as our new association management company. Impact’s transition team focused on our needs and the American Medical Association Alliance is looking forward to Impact increasing our membership numbers while strengthening our marketing presence and social media outreach. Fulfilling the Alliance mission of connecting physician families and building healthier communities will be a key measure of success for the newly formed AMAA and Impact partnership.” states Mary Beth Ellison, AMA Alliance President.

“We were thrilled to hear that the AMA Alliance chose us to be their AMC. We have spent the last few weeks learning their goals and struggles and are excited to help them succeed. I know they will be a great group to work with and am excited to see our team jump in.”, adds Jodi Fisher, CEO, Impact Association Management.

About the American Medical Association Alliance

Established in 1922, the AMA Alliance is the nation’s largest organization representing the physician family. Our nationwide network encompasses all stages of life in a physician family, from the training years to retirement. We represent the medical family today.

With nearly 100 years of history, the AMA Alliance has evolved from a female driven social and advocacy group to a diverse membership organization that includes male and female spouses and partners of physicians and medical students as well as physicians and medical students themselves. The AMA Alliance is proud of its rich legacy and is committed to honoring its past by building on the core principles on which it was founded: to support and provide resources for physician families and advocate for healthier communities in partnership with the American Medical Association.

Contact:

Mary Beth Ellison

AMA Alliance President

https://amaalliance.org/

About Impact Association Management 

Impact Association Management was founded in 2006 by Jodi Fisher, and since then they have successfully supported many Associations in growing and increasing profits and memberships. Now expanded into a robust team, Impact consists of Social Media experts, Non-Profit Administrators and Executive Administrative Assistants with impressive backgrounds in Association support, small business operations and international corporations.  Their mission is to provide customized, efficient, and forward-thinking association management services to small and medium sized Associations with a highly skilled, dedicated team of Executive Administrators. 

Contact: 

Impact Association Management

608.210.3120 

info@ImpactAMC.com 

www.ImpactAMC.com 

A Membership Campaign that Works

We all have members that have fallen off through the years or a targeted group of potential members. They remain in your contact list and you might send them the occasional email blast inviting them to an event or trying to entice them to rejoin the group. Why not take that a step further? One of our Executive Administrators, Caroline, did just that for one of our clients!

Caroline noticed a lack of new members joining and wanted to help her client grow their membership. In December 2019, she launched a new member recruitment campaign. This campaign targeted those in the industry and area that were not members. The campaign offered a 50% discount on 2020 dues to nonmembers. The regular rate is $260, making the discounted rate $130. Seeing that 50% off discount is enough to at least have people pause and consider the offer.

She then mailed this promotion to 272 non-members. The response was great and put the association back in front of some new eyes. Through this campaign, the association gained 11 new members and a branch of a current member that included 17 new individuals.

Associations might be hesitant to take this jump when thinking about costs. You might assume taking a cut in dues and spending the time and resources to send out a mailer, will not pay off. The results, however, showed. The total cost of sending the mailer and generating the list of recipients was $392.28. The income from this campaign was $1560 for this year alone. This results in a net income of $1,167.62. This is a huge for a nonprofit! It also only represents the amount of income generated from this campaign in this year. These new members will likely stick around for future years paying the full amount.

In looking for ways to grow membership or get previous members back involved, it is important to try new things. By giving a discount as an incentive, you are giving those members a trial run of what being a member of the association would look like. Once they have been in there, seen the benefits, and connected with others, they are more likely to stick around.

Planning for a Recession

Preparing for a recession should be something associations are thinking about during their strategic planning each year. This is something that, now, is coming into play more than ever. You might be wondering, how can Impact Association Management help our clients to successfully plan for an economic downturn?

Impact AMC can help!

Facilitate strategic planning and create a strategic plan, which considers and accounts for the possibility of an economic downturn. The organization will be much better off if this is done in advance rather than scrambling at the time.

Assess the historical impact recessions have had on membership, conference attendance, grant and partner funding, other key revenue sources and make recommendations based on this data.

o   Should special membership pricing or discounts be in place for renewal?

o   Should dues forgiveness be used for unemployed members?

o   Are renewals automatic?

o   Automate messaging leading up to conferences and renewals – why should they attend the conference or renew their membership? What benefits will they reap or haven’t they used yet?

Confirm their reserve model is prepared for risk.

Adapt content and messaging of member programming to reflect a near-term recession where appropriate.

o   Marketing should still be happening! It just needs to be efficiently targeted.

o   Reinforce the value of the association.

o   Offer more networking and career assistance.

o   What is the business case for attending the conference during an economic downturn?

o   Is their a collaborative forum for members to proactively engage with one another? If not, now might be the time to roll this out. It’s a low cost/low staff time engagement tool for members. This can be done via Association Management Software (Wild Apricot) and LinkedIn or Facebook groups

Using data, identify which programs meet the members’ needs the most and ensure they’re recession-proof and can sustain future economic trends. These programs should reflect the association’s core purpose. Conversely, identify which programs should be cycled out and retired.

o   These might be tough conversations, but they should be happening. Develop a way to assess program value and returns as well as when programs should be cycled out and retired.

Identify how your association can become a source of things your members cannot get anywhere else.

o   What is the association’s niche? Is the board of director’s view of this the same as the association’s members?

o   Hone into this and use it as a differentiator as to why people should join your association versus another one.

This might seem like a scary thing to deal with and something you only prepare for when the time comes. Being prepared, however, is what will help your association to thrive at a time that might seem unlikely.

Making the Most of Canceled Events

With the world a little crazier than usual lately, your association might be dealing with canceled events. Some of these events and conferences have likely been planned a year or so out and are a huge source of revenue for associations. If you are forced to cancel your event because of rapidly spreading Coronavirus, try a few of these tips to help recoup some money and still provide members with some benefits.

1.     Reread your contracts. Although you likely scanned thoroughly through your hotel or venue contract when signing it, read back through it and see if there is a Force Majeure clause. This is a contract provision that allows a party to suspend or terminate the performance of its obligations when certain circumstances beyond their control arise, making performance impracticable, illegal, or impossible.

2.     Hold webinars. In order to still provide conference-goers the content, they intended to learn, move sessions online. In order to make some money off of this, provide conference sponsors with the opportunity to sponsor the webinars. This will be a win-win for members, sponsors, and your association’s budget. You can also record the webinars for people who are unable to make it.

3.     Provide an opportunity for online networking. With everyone held up in their homes, people are going to be itching to connect with others. Move this experience online as well. There are plenty of platforms online that allow for breakout groups and networking opportunities. Throw a theme on it like “Cocktail Party” where everyone brings their own drink to the session to make it a little more fun and have ice breakers to get everyone talking.

4.     Practice the virtual event. Even though the switch may be last minute, make sure to get everything in order before introducing it to members. We all know that technology can be finicky and do not want to add to the stress of members whose plans have been shut down. Make sure that everything stands out and is a strong and fun experience for those that join.

Although this shift in plans may not be ideal, it is something we must accept. With that in mind, you might as well make the most of it and still work hard to provide your members and vendors with a unique experience. This could also prove to be successful and something you may want to do in smaller doses throughout the upcoming year, providing a new benefit to members.